Led Astray and The Sphinx Part 5

While lisping this somewhat confused explanation, the Little Countess had an expression at once sly and embarra.s.sed, which greatly fortified the sentiment of distrust which the awkwardness of her entrance had excited in my mind.

"Madam," I said, "you really distress me. I shall regret all my life to have missed the delightful occasion you are kind enough to offer me; but it is indispensable that to-morrow's mail shall carry off this report, which the minister is expecting with extreme impatience."

"You are afraid to lose your situation?"

"I have none to lose, madam."

"Well, then, let the minister wait, for my sake; it will flatter me."

"That is impossible, madam."

She a.s.sumed a very dry tone:

"But, that is really strange! What! you are not more anxious to be agreeable to me?"

"Madam," I replied rather dryly in my turn, "I should be extremely anxious to be agreeable to you, but I am not at all anxious to help you win your wager."

I threw out that insinuation somewhat at random, resting it upon some recollections and some slight indications which you may have been able to collect here and there in the course of my narrative. Nevertheless, I had hit it exactly. Madame de Palme blushed up to her ear, stammered out two or three words which I failed to catch, and left the room, having lost all countenance.

This precipitate retreat left me quite confused myself. I cannot admit that we should carry out our respect for the weaker s.e.x so far as to lend ourselves to every caprice and every enterprise it may please a woman to direct against our peace or our dignity; but our right of legitimate self-defense in such encounters is circ.u.mscribed within narrow and delicate limits, which I feared I had over-stepped. It was enough that Madame de Palme should be alone in the world, and without any other protection than her s.e.x, to make it seem extremely painful to me to have thoughtlessly yielded to the irritation, just though it might be, which her impertinent insistence had aroused. As I was endeavoring to establish between our respective wrongs a balance that might serve to quiet my scruples, there was another knock at the library-door. This time, it was Madame de Malouet who came in. She was much moved.

"Do tell me what has taken place," she said.

I gave her full and minute particulars of my interview with Madame de Palme, and, while expressing much regret at my vivacity, I added that the lady's conduct toward me was inexplicable; that she had taken me twice within twenty-four hours for the subject of her wagers, and that it was a great deal too much attention, on her part, for a man who asked her, as a sole favor, not to trouble herself about him any more than he troubled himself about her.

"Mon Dieu!" said the kind marquise, "I have no fault to find with you. I have been able to appreciate with my own eyes, during the past few days, your conduct and her own. But all this is very disagreeable. That child has just thrown herself in my arms weeping terribly. She says you have treated her like a creature--"

I protested: "I have repeated to you, word for word, madam, what pa.s.sed between us."

"It was not your words, it was your expression, your tone. Monsieur George, let me speak frankly with you: are you afraid of falling in love with Madame de Palme?"

"Not in the least, madam."

"Are you anxious that she should fall in love with you?"

"Neither, I a.s.sure you."

"Well, then, do me a favor; lay aside your pride for one day, and escort Madame de Palme to the hunt."

"Madam!"

"The advice may seem singular to you. But rest a.s.sured that I do not offer it without mature reflection. The repulsion which you manifest for Madame de Palme is precisely what attracts toward you that imperious and spoilt child. She becomes irritated and obstinate in presence of a resistance to which she has not been accustomed. Be meek enough to yield to her fancy.

Do that for me."

"Seriously madam, you think?--"

"I think," interrupted the old lady laughingly, "with due respect to you, that you will lose your princ.i.p.al merit in her eyes as soon as she sees you submit to her yoke like all the rest."

"Really, madam, you present things to me under an entirely novel aspect.

It never occurred to me to attribute Madame de Palme's mischievous pranks to a sentiment of which I might have reason to be proud."

"And you have been quite right," she resumed sharply; "there is, thank heaven! nothing of the kind as yet; but it might have come and you are too fair a man to desire it, with the views which I know you to entertain."

"I trust myself wholly to your direction, madam; I am going too fetch my hat and gloves. The question is now, how Madame de Palme will receive my somewhat tardy civility."

"She will receive it very well, if you offer it with good grace."

"As to that, madam, I shall offer it with all the good grace I can command."

On this a.s.surance, Madame de Malouet held out her hand, which I kissed with profound respect but rather slim grat.i.tude.

When I entered the parlor, booted and spurred, Madame de Palme was alone there; deeply seated in an arm-chair, buried under her skirts, she was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to her hat. She raised and dropped rapidly again her eyes, which were fiery red.

"Madam," I said, "I am sincerely so sorry to have offended you, that I venture to ask your pardon for an unpardonable piece of rudeness. I have come to hold myself at your disposition; if you decline my escort, you will not only be inflicting upon me an amply deserved mortification, but you will leave me still more unhappy than I have been guilty, and that is saying a great deal." Madame de Palme, taking into consideration the emotion of my voice rather more than my diplomatic pathos, lifted her eyes upon me again, opened her lips slightly, said nothing, and finally advanced a somewhat tremulous hand, which I hastened to receive within my own. She availed herself at once of this _point d'appui_ to get on her feet, and bounded lightly to the floor. A few minutes later, we were both on horseback and leaving the court-yard of the chateau.

We reached the extremity of the avenue without having exchanged a single word. I felt deeply, as you may believe, how much this silence, on my part at least, was awkward, stiff, and ridiculous; but, as it often happens in circ.u.mstances which demand most imperatively the resources of eloquence, I was stricken with an invincible sterility of mind. I tried in vain to find some plausible subject of conversation, and the more annoyed I felt at finding none, the less capable I became of doing so.

"Suppose we have a run?" said Madame de Palme suddenly.

"Let us have a run!" I said; and we started at a gallop, to my infinite relief.

Nevertheless, it became absolutely necessary to check our speed at the entrance of the tortuous path that leads down into the valley of the ruins. The care required to guide our horses during that difficult descent served for a few minutes longer as a pretext for my silence; but, on reaching the level ground of the valley, I saw that I must speak at any cost, and I was about to begin with some commonplace remark, when Madame de Palme was kind enough to antic.i.p.ate me:

"They say, sir, that you are very witty?"

"You may judge for yourself, madam," I replied laughingly.

"Rather difficult so far, even if I were able, which you are very far from conceding. Oh! you need not deny it! Its perfectly useless, after the conversation which chance made me overhear the other night."

"I have made so many mistakes concerning you, madam, you must realize the pitiful confusion I feel toward you."

"And in what respect have you been mistaken?"

"In all respects, I believe."

"You are not quite sure? Admit at least that I am a good-natured woman."

"Oh! with all my heart, madam!"

"You said that well. I believe you think it. You are not bad either, I believe, and yet you have been cruelly so to me."

"That is true."

"What sort of man are you, then, pray?" resumed the Little Countess in her brief and abrupt tone; "I cannot understand it very well. By what right, on what ground, do you despise me? Suppose I am really guilty of all the intrigues which are attributed to me; what is that to you? Are you a saint yourself? a reformer? Have you never gone astray? Are you any more virtuous than other men of your age and condition? What right have you to despise me? Explain!"

"Were I guilty of the sentiments which you attribute to me, madam, I should answer, that never has any one, either in your s.e.x or mine, taken his own morality as the rule of his opinion and his judgment upon others; we live as we can, and we judge as we should; it is more particularly a very frequent inconsistency among men, to frown down unmercifully the very weaknesses which they encourage and of which they derive the benefit. For my part, I hold severely aloof from a degree of austerity as ridiculous in a man as uncharitable in a Christian. And as to that unfortunate conversation which a deplorable chance caused you to hear, and in which my expressions, as it always happens, went far beyond the measure of my thought, it is an offense which I can never obliterate, I know; but I shall at least explain frankly. Every one has his own tastes and his own way of understanding life in this world; we differ so much, you and I, and you conceived for me, at first sight, an extreme antipathy. This disposition, which, on one side at least, madam, was to be singularly modified on better acquaintance, prompted me to some thoughtless manifestations of ill-humor and vivacity of controversy. You have doubtless suffered, madam, from the violence of my language, but much less, I beg you to believe, than I was to suffer from it myself, after I had recognized its profound and irreparable injustice."

This apology, more sincere than lucid, drew forth no answer. We were at this moment just coming out of the old abbey church, and we found ourselves unexpectedly mingled in the last ranks of the cavalcade. Our appearance caused a suppressed murmur to run through the dense crowd of hunters. Madame de Palme was at once surrounded by a merry throng that seemed to address congratulations to her on the winning of her wager. She received them with an indifferent and pouting look, whipped up her horse, and made her way to the front before entering the forest.